4.4.
From Desktop to SuperComputing
Up one level
When Linux was first envisaged by Linus Torvalds, it was just another hackers hobby. But from the humble Intel 386 machine of Linus that ran the first kernel, Linux has come a long way. Its most notable use now is in the field of massively parallel supercomputing clusters.
In August 2001, BBC reported that the US Government was planning to build what would be a mega computer, capable of performing over 13 trillion calculations per second (13.6 TeraFLOPS). The project, called Teragrid would consist of a connected network of 4 US supercomputing centers. The four labs that are collaborating to create the Teragrid are: National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois(NCSA), San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at the University of California Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago; California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. At each of these centers, there would be a supercomputer. In total, there would be more than 3000 processors running in parallel to create the Tetragrid.
By 2005, the use of Linux became more prevalent in Supercomputing. The 2005 Top500 list of Supercomputers shows that 4 of the top 5 fastest supercomputers use Linux as their operating system.
